Planning Smarter: Creating Blueprint-Quality Software Specifications

5.5. Specialize

Related to the challenge of getting the best personnel is the question of specialization. Most firms subscribe to the belief that all team members must be intimately involved in all aspects of project planning. The theory is that only in this way can all team members have buy-in, have a chance to raise issues early, reduce training requirements later, and get the background to truly understand the user's requirements.

While this sounds good in theory, mundane realities tend to undermine these goals more often than not. First, the larger the team, the more gridlock in the planning process. The various forms of overplanning are much more likely to occur with larger teams. Also, with the high personnel turnover in the software business ...